August 10, 2010

Kiernan Shipka on Sally Draper's difficult 'Mad Men' journey

"Mad Men" is deliciously complex, but you could almost sum up the AMC drama by calling it a prelude to Sally Draper's inevitable years of therapy.

Sally has witnessed the painful dissolution of her parents' marriage and the exposure of Don and Betty Draper's "perfect" suburban life as a carefully manufactured lie. Her parents' self-absorption and frequent emotional neglect has left Sally a lost and lonely child, who, in the fourth season of the AMC drama, has turned to a creepy young neighbor, Glen, for advice.

You may yearn for Sally to get a break, but the actress who plays her says that Sally's life isn't going to improve any time soon.

"She has a very rocky ride this season," says Kiernan Shipka, the 10-year old Chicagoan who plays ad executive Don Draper's oldest child.

Shipka, the daughter of real estate developer John Shipka and Erin Brennan Shipka, is friendly, composed and articulate, and she lights up when she talks about her profession.

"Any day acting is an amazing day," she said as she sat in the lobby of a Beverly Hills hotel on a recent Saturday.

After doing extensive print and commercial work in Chicago, at age 6, Shipka, who returns to her family's River North home whenever she can, started traveling to Los Angeles for auditions and acting roles.

"I had never been out here before not even on vacation. It was totally new and it was really exciting. I loved it from the beginning," she said.

Yet the path of a child actor isn't always easy, given that their growth spurts and the development of their acting abilities are hard to predict. Over the course of "Mad Men's" four-year history, for example, Bobby Draper, Sally's younger brother, has been played by three different young actors (Bobby is currently played by Jared Gilmore).

But Shipka's job on the award-winning show seems very secure -- she was a recurring guest star in past seasons, but in Season 4, she was made a series regular.

"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner said via e-mail that he "always hoped" to give Sally's story increasing prominence on the show, but he added that he "just didn't know if it was possible, because of the limitations of actors that young."

"Obviously like any good actress she's learned a lot by working more and working with great actors, but she has a core talent that is very impressive and has remarkably not changed despite the process of growing up," Weiner said.

And Shipka's done it all without reading "Mad Men" scripts in their entirety. Her mother, who accompanied her to the interview, reads scripts and screens completed episodes for her, and the 10-year old is only allowed to read and watch scenes that are deemed appropriate.

"When we watch, she fast-forwards a lot," said Shipka, who added that she didn't start going to table reads, or read-throughs with the entire cast, until last year.

Shipka said she used to identify more with the more "free-spirited, happy, adventurous" Sally of the first two seasons of the show. But when her parents' marriage fell apart and her beloved grandfather, Gene (Ryan Cutrona), passed away in Season 3, Sally's journey got much darker.

Gene may not have been perfect, but he happily spent hours of quality time with Sally, who basked in the attention. In a Season 3 scene that perfectly combined "Mad Men's" atmosphere of potential danger with its sly sense of humor, he even let her drive a car.

Shipka's most indelible scene came after Gene died and the grownups around Sally tried to ignore her understandable emotional turmoil. As she confronted them about their attitudes, the callousness of Betty (January Jones) and Don Draper (Jon Hamm) was put into sharp relief, and it was hard not to admire the courage and honesty of the little girl who expertly put the adults in their places.

"When we're actually filming, I try to feel those emotions as much as possible," she added. Given that Cutrona -- by then a good friend -- would no longer be appearing on the show, the sense of loss was easier to summon when scene was shot, she said.

"It was hard to say goodbye to him," Shipka said. "I was almost crying that day too."

Sally's problems have only increased this season, as her brittle, remote mother tries to make a go of it with her second husband, leaving Sally to navigate the tricky waters of her new life without much guidance.

"In Season 3 and Season 4, I feel Sally is very beaten down and she has to cope with the separation (and divorce), but she has to do it on her own with a lot of trial and error, " Shipka said. "I think she has so many feelings bottled up inside. ...At the beginning of Season 3, her dad said he would never leave her. Now they're separated. it's hard for her to know her to trust because I feel the only person she can trust right now is herself."

Shipka ably portrays Sally's uncertainty and pain, but she's always given the character a measure of steely resolve, which she'll no doubt need as she deals with the turmoil of her own family and the cultural changes of the '60s. As "Mad Men" has shown, especially this season, the young are demanding more honesty, sincerity and emotional engagement from their elders and from life itself, and Sally is actually at the forefront of that generational rejection of polite hypocrisy and repression.

Sally "is very strong and she's very brave," said Shipka, who clearly relishes the challenges she's been given.

"Every script is so surprising," she said. "It's absolutely great to get such great material. The best feeling is that Matthew Weiner believes in me."

NOTE: If you're looking for my review of the Aug. 8 episode of "Mad Men," I'm sorry to say I won't be posting a review of that episode this week. I'll resume my weekly reviews next week -- I'll try to post thoughts on both the Aug 8 and Aug. 15 episodes the morning of Monday, Aug. 16. Thanks for your patience and sorry for the delay.

Comments

Thanks for the great interview with Kiernan Shipka, Mo! She absolutely deserves her status as a regular cast member (I actually punched the air during the season premiere's titles when I saw her name without "guest starring" preceding it). I can't wait to see how Sally progresses this season, even though it's likely to be a rough trip.

"The Good News" chapter compared my dad’s False Self (Narcissism and lacking empathy) to his True Self: Dick. It’s like the Tin Man getting a Heart in the Wizard of Oz!

Joanie also found Greg’s True Self and she found hers also. That took a long time for her.

My mother wanted to love his True Self, because she hated his disinterest, but she confused his Secret with lying, and she decided she could never trust him; it wasn’t like he had 2 families. My mother made things worse. Now my dad is drinking himself down to the gutter and bringing others with him. He said he had his heart broken. “I had it coming.” , but my mom never tried to understand why he hid his secret.

Anna loves him unconditionally, like a mother. He never had that, and that is what he has always wanted. She told him, “The belief you are alone has kept you from being happy.”

Now she is dying, and dad feels abandoned again. The doctor warned him to cut back on cigarettes and alcohol, but he feels helpless. So he drinks and drinks and seeks out the wrong kind of women to distract him.

He forgets his problems when he is around young college girls, because it wants to feel young and forget his obligations. I know a lot of men in Manhattan who feel that way. They always have and always will. They have issues.

He pays for women to slap him instead of loving him, because he believes he should be punished for being unloveable.

Now he is dragging other people from his office to his House. First, it was Allison, then Lane. All these grown ups are so mixed up. His apartment is like the Rising Sun house in the song:

“And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I’m one .
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s on a drunk .

Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun.”

I hope my dad gets his life together before something bad happens, and I hope my mother realizes my dad had lots of problems before he ever married her. If she was not such a baby, she would have tried to understand him rather than reject him.

I hope I will not end up like them when I grow up. They make you not want to ever get married!

Maybe next week, Mom and Dad will be happier. Then they won’t be so bossy to me and Bobby.

Ok...is it just me or is there something incredibly creepy about a 10-yr old saying things like, "I feel Sally is very beaten down and she has to cope with the separation (and divorce), but she has to do it on her own with a lot of trial and error, " or "the sense of loss was easier to summon on the set when scene was shot". Sorry, but this conversation is much too advanced for a child of that age, I don't care how smart they are. I predict one of those kids who gets emancipated and ends up in rehab at 16. Sad.

Hm ... aren't the big stars who end up crazy and in rehab generally less intelligent? Neither Lindsay Lohan nor Britney Spears could string together words with that eloquence now. I think the more intelligent people in the spotlight tend to do better, i.e., Dakota Fanning, Natalie Portman. Both acted from a rather young age, both proved to be well-spoken and mature, and both have retained what appears to be a very stable sort of life. I suspect that will be the path of Kiernan Shipka.

Kiernan Shipka participates in one or two of the commentaries on the third season dvd. She speaks freely and maturely about her work there-- no one is telling her what to say. She speaks about her character, and the back story that she came up with in a couple of places to flesh out her motivations. In other words she is an intelligent kid who has worked hard and undergone method acting training. Nothing wrong with that! I salute her hard work. It's the kids that get everything handed to them who get screwed up, in Hollywood and in the rest of the world as well.

obviously those who express doubt about a 10 year old being able to formulate very descriptive, introspective answers to questions without an adult "feeding" them information has never really sat down and talked to most 10 year olds. They are much smarter than you think..... I have three daughters all grown. All would have answered with as much aplomb and precocoiousness as Sally did. I look forward to seeing more of her in this series.....

Hopefully, the writers can get it together and give her great material like the previous 3 seasons, and not bore us stiff (or the actors) for the rest of season 4.

This young actor is one of the best on the show and has one of the best storylines too. Anyone watching the show gets very invested in Sally's story, her fraught relationships, and her possible future. Sally seems more her father's daughter and, like Don, knows how to keep a secret, too (Ep. 3, Glen's vandalism). The scene of her driving the car was laugh-out-loud hilarious and a testament to this wonderful multi-layered series.

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